According to the MR method in general, the body of a patient or in general an object has to be arranged in a strong, uniform magnetic field whose direction at the same time defines an axis (normally the z-axis) of the coordinate system on which the measurement is based. The magnetic field produces different energy levels for the individual nuclear spins independent of the magnetic field strength which nuclear spins can be excited (spin resonance) by application of an electromagnetic alternating field (RF field) of defined frequency (so called Larmor frequency, or MR frequency). From a microscopic point of view, the distribution of the individual nuclear spins produces an overall magnetization which can be deflected out of the state of equilibrium by application of an electromagnetic pulse of appropriate frequency (RF pulse) while the magnetic field extends perpendicular to the z-axis, also referred to as longitudinal axis, so that the magnetization performs a precessional motion about the z-axis. The precessional motion describes the surface of a cone whose angle of aperture is referred to as flip angle. The magnitude of the flip angle is dependent on the strength and the duration of the applied electromagnetic pulse. In the case of the so called 90 degree pulse, the spins are deflected from the z-axis to the transverse plane (flip angle 90 degrees).
After termination of the RF pulse, the magnetization relaxes back to the original state of equilibrium, in which the magnetization in the z-direction is built up again with a first time constant T1 (spin-lattice or longitudinal relaxation time), and the magnetization in the direction perpendicular to the z-direction relaxes with a second time constant T2 (spin or transverse relaxation time). The variation of the magnetization can be detected by means of receiving RF coils which are arranged and oriented within an examination volume of the MR device in such a manner that the variation of the magnetization is measured in the direction perpendicular to the z-axis. The decay of the transverse magnetization is accompanied, after application of, for example a 90 degree pulse, by a transition of the nuclear spins induced by local magnetic field inhomogeneities from an ordered state with the same phase to a state in which all phase angles are uniformly distributed (de-phasing). The de-phasing can be compensated by means of a refocusing pulse, for example 180 degree pulse. This produces an echo signal (spin echo) in the receiving coils.
In order to realise spatial resolution in the body, linear magnetic field gradients extending along the three main axes are superimposed on the uniform magnetic field, leading to a linear spatial dependency of the spin resonance frequency. The signal picked up in the receiving coils then contains components of different frequencies which can be associated with different locations in the body. The signal data obtained via the receiving coils correspond to the spatial frequency domain and are called k-space data. The k-space data usually include multiple lines acquired with different phase encoding. Each line is digitized by collecting a number of samples. A set of k-space data is converted to an MR image by means of Fourier transformation.